Soldier of Fortune 2

We worked with Activision and Raven to port the PC version of this game over to the Xbox. I initially worked on reducing textures and reworking levels to optimize art for Xbox but in order to spice up the port, Activision requested that we add additional content. At first I helped design what essentially would have been a expansion pack that outlined a whole new single player story line but Activision felt it would be too much work and decided to have us create multiplayer maps instead. Each of the artists got to design three maps and they would pick the best five. All three of my levels were chosen to be part of the map pack.

The first map, Kowloon Market was originally part of the single player mission sample I had created. To turn it into a multiplayer map, sections of it were completely closed off and rebuilt turning if from a linear experience to one more akin to an arena. It was best suited for Deathmatch.

With the second map, Deep Sea Oil Rig, I created an isolated area trapping the player in a tight location with lots of navigational challenges as well as a good amount of interior and exterior action. There was a Capture mode in the game and this map was built to take advantage of that game type.

The third map, Tibetan Monastery, was my attempt at creating something a bit more natural. It had a large open field, used a lot of interior and exterior gameplay and had three levels of navigation to get from one end to the other (over the roof tops, through the courtyards, or underground). It was primarily built to used for the Capture the Flag mode.
When creating maps I love to add a sense of exploration. I want the player to be able to experiment with moving around the map, finding new and creative ways to get from one location to another and sussing out those perfect combat locations. I’m also a big fan of using vertical space. Nothing is more boring to me than a map that has all the action happening on the same plane. I want players to feel like danger could be all around them and force them to look up and down as well as side to side. And I try to create clear and defined Points of Interest so no matter where they are on the map, they always have something that they can look at to allow them to orient their location.

I designed these levels and built them using a modified Quake Editor. The above video shows clear samples from all three of the maps.